TPS

Ground: Veritas Stadion

Visits: 1

Date: 16th June 2011

Match: TPS - Inter Turku 2-1 (Veikkausliiga)

Attendance: 8 019

Last year I visited Finland for the first time in my life. Even if the football itself wasn't the best I still enjoyed my trip and decided to travel there again this summer. Wednesday was my last day at work before the summer holidays. When I discovered the biggest match in Finland, the Turku derby, was to be played on Thursday evening I quickly booked a flight from Copenhagen to Turku. I was actually a bit surprised there was a direct flight but I am not complaining. I arrived in Turku (Åbo in Swedish) by 1pm. These parts of Finland have quite a few people with Swedish as their native language and I knew I would be OK talking Swedish here.

I spent the afternoon walking around in the city centre before heading to the ground shortly before 5pm (6.30 kick-off). Veritas Stadion is the home of both Inter Turku and TPS (Turun PalloSeura) and has a capacity of around 9 000. The stadium was opened in 1952 but was rebuilt in 2003 when a new main stand was built. The main stand would do a lot of clubs proud and this was where I was seated as well. The south end of the ground is quite a steep open stand while the opposite end is open.

This was a TPS home match but both sets of fans turned out in big numbers. More than 8 000 in total at Veritas Stadion and attendances like this are very rare in Finland. TPS started the best and after 80 minutes they were 2-0 up. Top of the table Inter Turku played better in the second half though but could only pull one goal back. 2-1 to TPS was the final score. TPS' hard core fans, in the south stand, celebrated in style after their derby victory. A memorable evening for them and a nice start to my Finnish tour. Tomorrow I will see a Kakkonen (level 3) match in Turku. I doubt there will be 8 000 at that match though.

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